


A Clean, Well-Lighted Place

by Raven (singlecrow)



Category: Star Trek: The Next Generation
Genre: Canonical Character Death, F/M, Gen, Sleeplessness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-12
Updated: 2014-07-12
Packaged: 2018-02-08 14:31:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,846
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1944720
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/singlecrow/pseuds/Raven
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Twenty-one nights in the life of the Enterprise Insomniacs' Club.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Clean, Well-Lighted Place

1\. 

Tasha doesn't believe in therapy. 

She's also too self-aware not to know why Deanna Troi sometimes sits with her after the gamma shift, offers to get her a drink, lets her talk when she wants to talk and is silent when she doesn't. This night they've gone through a couple of sensible gin and tonics with the ship's changeover to the nocturnal shifts quiet and comforting around them, and now they're on something Deanna wanted to try, which is aromatic, and interesting. "And," Tasha says – she tilts her head left, then right, can't find any other word – "…blue."

"Blue," Deanna agrees, and chuckles. "What colour should I get you?"

Sitting there inspecting something that the cocktail menu calls a warp core breach, Tasha wants to say, nothing: that this is nice, and the drink smells like raspberries, but this isn't her life. That in this clean, well-lighted place, the _Enterprise_ NCC-1701-D forty nights after her commissioning, she wears this uniform and these rank pips, but that they were given to her, and what is given can be taken away. And then she opens her mouth, and what comes out is: "Pink? Is there pink?" 

Deanna slams the glass down in front of her a minute later and it smells like honey and redcurrants. "Still having trouble sleeping?" she asks.

"This'll help," Tasha says, and knocks it back, and in that tiny dose of Dutch courage is the beginning of things.

*

2.

It's a captain's privilege to set the day/night cycle on her ship. And it's the middle of the afternoon in the old house in Mogadishu, so it's the middle of the afternoon on the USS _Hera_.

"Geordi," says Captain La Forge, as Geordi tries and fails to conceal a yawn from the viewscreen, "you're a good boy, but you're an idiot."

"Thanks, Ma," Geordi tells her, looking back at the screen. "You're a great comfort to me in this time of trouble."

"Geordi," his mother says, "you've spent the last ten minutes telling me how you can never sleep in a new place, the ship sounds wrong, and if the ship doesn't sound wrong, it's the air that's too dry, and if the air's not too dry it's a tap that drips or a coupling that rattles or Cardassian voles in the replicators or some such thing. How'd I give birth to such a landlubber?"

"It's the warp harmonics," Geordi says, without rancour. "It's new for every ship, it takes me time to get used to." His mother grins; she rose to command through engineering, and knows all about feeling the movement of a ship inside your skin. "I'll get there."

"I'm sure you will," his mother says, gently. "And before you do, how about you go visit your new friend whom you spent the ten minutes before that telling me about, the one who's sweet and funny and interesting, and hasn't slept in twenty-five years, on account of _being an android_."

Geordi stares at her for a moment. "Oh."

"Oh, he says. Oh. I've got to go play nursemaid to my other children now, so..."

"Do your senior staff know you call them that?"

"Speak later, baby," she says, reaching towards him on the screen. "Sleep well, when you do."

"Yes, ma'am," Geordi says, and grins.

*

3.

"Data," Tasha says, very softly, "I heard – I mean, I figure you don't sleep." And then, before she can lose her nerve and spend another deserted night on the observation deck: "Would you mind some company?"

Data considers her for a long moment, on the threshold, and then says: "Come in."

*

4.

"Still not sleeping?" Deanna asks, after they've spent two months in open space and Tasha has started scheduling mandatory early-morning mok'bara and calisthenics for her deputies.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Tasha says, primly. They're in Deanna's quarters, this time, one sensible gin and tonic down. The crew have a day's liberty coming up, and the mood of the ship has picked up accordingly: all small spikes of happiness and introspection. "Lieutenant Worf informs me that all Klingon martial arts are best practised at dawn. It's something about Klingon metabolism."

"We're on a starship," Deanna points out. Sometimes, her job is to point out the patently obvious. "It's never dawn."

"Dawn, as per the rhythms of the ship's day," Tasha says, still prim, and Deanna smiles at her, fondly, and takes a sip from her drink. In civilian practice, her job now would be to point out the grumbling from the deputies – the men and women and others who are, even now, venting in Ten-Forward to the bartender about that damn Yar and her refusal to let them alone for a minute, even before breakfast – and perhaps also that Tasha, little blonde security chief Tasha Yar, thinks she needs a hard-assed reputation as much and more as she needs to keep in shape. 

But this isn't civilian practice. Tasha doesn't sleep at night, and uses it; and Tasha grew up somewhere worse than Deanna could imagine, and uses it. Even after dark, the Enterprise is a safe place to be. 

"Still," she says, "you didn't answer my question."

"You could answer it right back at me," Tasha snipes. "I don't see you sleeping right now, either."

"Tasha," Deanna says, mildly, and gets up to pour them both another drink.

Tasha glances up at her. "Better," she admits after a moment, with her hands tangled in the throw on Deanna's chair, the knots and tassels working through her fingers.

*

5.

"Tasha," Data says, very softly, "Geordi. It is time to wake up."

Tasha comes awake like a shot, pushing away a blanket that's been thrown over her. Data moves like a cat; he's nearly on the edge of the couch she's sleeping on. She jerks back, adrenaline rising, then lets it go. It's his damn couch, and she came here.

Again.

"Again," Geordi says, rolling over on the floor and narrowly avoiding flattening his VISOR. "We did it again."

"That is correct." Data's looking for his boots; they're all on duty in a half-hour. It would be so easy, Tasha is thinking, for the whole crew to get the wrong idea about this. Not that…

Never mind. 

"Urgh," Geordi says, stretching out – the floor doesn't look comfortable, though Tasha's surprised at the thought, having slept in a thousand worst places – and a boot lands neatly next to Tasha's foot. It's her size. Data's apparently looking for his own through a process of elimination. "Data – I mean, it's been a while now. Do you mind that we come here?"

She's looking around the room as she says it, thinking a little about the privilege of rank – Data's quarters have a curved window looking out into warp – and a little about how this, if anything, is an artefact of Data's personhood: he makes a mess. In the hours between night and morning, Data has accumulated padds and papers in a pile on the floor around him, discarded styluses and perhaps, ideas. No half-drunk coffee cups, but everything but. The blanket over her hasn't come from a replicator, Tasha realises; it's soft and worn through in places. 

"No," Data says at last, and slowly, as though trying the words out: "Not at all."

"Good," Geordi says, grinning, and hands Data a coffee cup to hold while he hops around the room on one leg. 

And that's how it begins, Tasha will think, later: how she was willing from the very beginning to place her life in these people's hands, but it turned out they were also her friends.

*

6.

Four injured colonists have been beamed up from the planet Orion IV, which is actually the third planet in the Sigma Orionis system. Their injuries are serious, but treatable; Beverly checks everything is in order, lets Dr. Selar finish up writing the notes for the new patients, washes her hands and face, and orders hot camomile tea from the replicator in the lab. 

It's coming up on four in the morning, the light in the room muted and fringed with shadows. The cup appears on a saucer, with a small white rectangle balanced on the edge of it, like an old-fashioned business card, held in place with a lump of sugar. "Computer," Beverly says, after a moment, "what is the Insomniacs' Club?"

The computer says, primly: "The Insomniacs' Club is located in deck two, section nine alpha."

"That doesn't actually answer my question," Beverly murmurs, and when the computer starts talking about unknown inputs, adds: "But it's okay. I get it."

Later, it's not as if her route back to her quarters doesn't take her through that section of the ship, anyway, and it's not as if she wouldn't pause in any case, in the last hour before the ship's artificial dawn, to smile at the sound of affectionate laughter drifting through the dark.

* 

7.

The senior officers' mission briefing is timed early this morning - so those coming off the night shift can attend and fall straight into bed, Beverly assumes. This is a dark time, she thinks, and then can't shake the vivid impression the words cast up: she's been seeing officers with bloodshot eyes and shaking, trigger-happy hands. The Romulans want to parley under an olive branch, but the ship is shifting from yellow alert to red alert to general quarters and back again, everything harsh and unfamiliar. 

When she goes into the conference room Data is the only other person there, his hand on the edge of the table, looking out into space. "It's a kind thing you're doing, Data," she tells him. 

He glances at her. "I do not understand."

"Like hell you don't," Beverly grins to herself. "Listen - don't use up your own allowances, okay? Put it on sickbay's account."

He looks at her again, then away, says nothing, and Beverly thinks about the Romulans, and that continuing mission to seek out new life, and the long nights ahead.

*

8.

"Data," Geordi says, "you're not - you're not always here, when I am."

Data shakes his head, the stylus in his hand going smoothly over the padd, but with a tiny scratching sound, like pen on paper. "No."

"But you don't sleep - ever." Geordi thinks about that. "I mean, not that we're all not grateful to you for having the Club in your quarters so often. But it's not always here."

Data glances up, then down, his hand moving quickly still. _Scratch, scratch_. "No."

"Why" - Geordi pauses, waits for inspiration to strike - "no, never mind, it doesn't matter."

"I do not believe that is the case." This time he doesn't look up, and Geordi wonders what he's writing with such meticulousness. 

"Really, Data, it's not important. I was just wondering if sometimes you get that three am feeling, too."

Data lays down the pen and looks at him, eyes in shadow. The computer has defaulted to gamma shift ambient conditions, and neither of them have thought to raise the lights. "Others have spoken to me of this - three am feeling." A pause. "That is not the reason behind my... occasional participation."

"Huh. Okay." Geordi gets up for a moment, stretches out his limbs, returned to his spot leaning against the couch. A brief mental stock-take: still tired as hell and wide awake. "So what is it?"

"It is preparation," Data says, returning to the padd, "for something else. I have survived decapitation, Geordi. The entropy of the universe increases. There will come a time when there will be no more stars, and no reason to believe I shall not witness that darkness. It is preparation for the long night."

"Well," Geordi says, "shit."

Data glances up at him again, offers a small smile, and goes on writing.

*

9.

Four thousand, one hundred and sixty-five days and four thousand, one hundred and sixty-four nights since Tasha Yar left the failed world she was born on in the Starfleet science vessel _Lethe_ , she makes a decision in the early hours of the morning, watching a starfield fluttering into warp beneath the curved windows on the observation deck. It makes her feel calm, aware of the thrum of the ship and the quiet of the night. Data stirs on the other side of the room, throwing down his padd so it flips over, casting light into his eyes. Tasha smiles at him, then up at the stars. 

She's not sleeping, but she's going to stay.

*

10.

The night after Tasha's death, Data leaves her blanket on the couch.

*

11.

And the night after.

*

12.

Deanna comes awake slowly, comfortably, as though her body has had enough rest and somewhere, even if not here, sunlight is streaming in through the window.

"Computer," she says, "time, please."

"The time is 0500 hours," the computer says primly, and Deanna nods. Three hours till alpha shift. "Computer, locate Insomniacs' Club."

"The Insomniacs' Club has not been instated," the computer says, primly. "Set location?"

Deanna thinks about the security staff who are, right now, doing calisthenics in Tasha's honour; about the the rosewater cocktail syrup bottle sitting on her sideboard, waiting to be opened, and Lieutenant Commander Data, emphatically hollow to her senses. "No," she says. "Not yet."

*

13.

And the night after that.

*

14.

At 0400, Keiko bursts into tears, pulls an old pair of sandals out from under the bed, puts the baby in the crook of her arm and steps out into the corridor. Molly screams and Keiko is momentarily cheerful – the soundproofing isn't flawless out here, and now she won't be the only person on this deck to be miserable in the morning – and then when that burst of vindictive energy has flared out she finds she's sinking down the wall, slowly, with Molly still yelling at four-second intervals and the tears collecting listlessly on each side of her nose. “Computer,” she says, finally, “locate Insomniacs’ Club.”

The computer’s voice is prosaic. “The Insomniacs’ Club is in Lieutenant Commander Data’s quarters.”

It takes longer to get there than she thinks it will, her feet shifting and shuffling in the slightly-oversized sandals, with both Molly and her own body seemingly heavier with each step, and by the time she reaches deck two and rings the door chime she feels like her weight would tilt the ship. 

"Come in,” calls the voice from within, and she's stumbling on the threshold, her vision blurring like grease on glass, and the same voice, kind and concerned, is saying, “Keiko? Oh, no…” – and taking Molly from her, and leading her to a couch, and then everything whirls black and disappears down her mental plughole.

Keiko wakes up to Geordi saying, “It's the thing with the Romulans' new cloaking device. He didn't want to go, but the captain insisted every trained engineer we had except me went along on the delegation…"

“Miles,” Keiko says, and opens her eyes. “How long…”

“Twenty minutes,” Deanna says, a little amused. The lights are lower than standard in here, but the room looks comfortable and cosy compared to the bleak dimness of her own quarters. “Is this the first time Chief O’Brien has been away since Molly was born?”

Keiko nods, breathes in and out. The vicious edge of the exhaustion has faded, to be replaced by a calm lethargy. Deanna looks tired herself, but comfortable. There are padds spread out on the floor in front of her, and a cup of hot chocolate; Keiko guesses she's catching up on her clinical notes. “I thought I was doing fine. I mean, I was doing fine, until tonight. Some women do it all on their own. Like your mother.”

“My mother,” Deanna says, again with the trace of amusement, “had help. Like you do.”

“I do?” Keiko follows her gaze to the other side of the room and blinks: Data is holding Molly, muttering something under his breath, soft and soothing, while Commander La Forge persuades the replicator to produce a cuddly sehlat. “Oh.”

Deanna smiles. “Who better?”

“Oh,” Keiko says, again, and she was doing fine by herself until tonight and they're the ship's chief engineer and operations officer, surely they must have other things – but she's so tired. “Can I – just for a while…”

“As long as you need,” Deanna says, quietly, and Keiko listens to them for a while, to Geordi replicating more hot drinks, to Deanna murmuring to herself as she turns the pages, to Data softly explaining the physics of trans-warp cloaking technology to her three-month-old daughter, and then,

sleep.

*

15.

"Why don't you sleep?" Beverly asks, suddenly. "Computer, set location of Insomniacs' Club: deck 17, section 22."

"Acknowledged."

"It's only in recent years," Deanna says, sitting cross-legged on a picnic blanket, and then with Beverly's kind, clear eyes on her, admits: "Since I left Betazed."

"Ah." Beverly leans back. The air is warm, but not humid: comforting to dozens of species. "It's nice to do this somewhere different, isn't it? It's because of the humans on board ship."

Deanna shakes her head. "It isn't. It would be the same for any collection of species whom I could read. It's their proximity. Imagine" – she lifts a hand, then puts it down, wonderingly. "You brought a picnic basket?"

Beverly hands her a peach. "Imagine…"

"Imagine you're on a boat on the water," Deanna says, after a moment. "Either it's the great tides, or a thousand choppy little wavelets. When do you think you'd sleep better?"

Beverly considers, then nods. "So when we're all tired, or on shore leave, or worried, or happy…"

"Those are the good nights." Deanna bites into her peach. "The best nights are after… someone's come home, whom we thought might not."

Beverly smiles at that. "I like those, too."

They sit in silence for a while, Beverly rifling through the basket for a napkin and a fork, before Deanna asks, "Why don't you?"

"Sleep, you mean?" Beverly looks up, then shakes her head. "I'm chief medical officer. I'm just – always waiting." She smiles for a moment, and Deanna follows her gaze. "What – oh."

Keiko says, "Can I…"

Deanna takes the baby and kisses her little head, and Beverly says, "We thought you might like the arboretum, for a change" – and Keiko's sigh of relief is audible through the whisper of the trees.

*

16.

In the weeks after Wolf 359, Deanna starts to think the whole ship's mental state has become graphable, axes writ large in each individual mind: relief and grief; relief and anger; relief and guilt. Relief, and finally, acceptance. For the first few nights she sleeps soundly, rocked on a steady tide: and then they separate out, inevitable individual trajectories towards healing. On the seventh day, she gives up at 0300, gathers up her notes and her papers and makes her way barefoot to deck two, section nine alpha.

"Counsellor," Jean-Luc Picard says, looking up from the baby in his arms. "Good evening."

"Captain," Deanna says, stupidly, looking around the room, and then: "Where's Keiko?"

"Stepped out for a moment, as has Commander Data. I believe they are both spending their research time working on rates of transpiration data from the botanical labs."

"Oh," Deanna says, and lays down her padd and papers, watching dispassionately as they spill out of her hands. Everything is becoming slightly unreal. "I thought you didn't like children, sir."

Molly stirs for a moment, making small, interested noises. A tiny hand goes for Picard's combadge, and he shifts away, making her squawk. "Shh, shh. It's one of the burdens of command."

From behind him, the door opens and Keiko steps in, momentarily silhouetted against the brighter light. "Oh," she says, looking at the ship's captain holding her daughter, and Deanna is frozen by this little tableau, this snapshot of how strange things are in these unholy days. It's Keiko who finally asks, "How did you know of the Insomniacs' Club, sir?"

Deanna has been wondering that, herself. Between them, she, Beverly and Data have arranged for the computer to produce calling cards when asked to produce non-caffeinated hot drinks or soothing music between the hours of midnight and four am. She can't imagine Jean-Luc Picard drinking hot milk. 

“I receive reports on every aspect of the ship’s functioning,” Picard says, softly. “And I love a mystery. Especially one so small and fascinating as why Commander Data’s replicator is used so often, between the hours of one and six am, to fabricate chocolate, playing cards and baby formula.”

Deanna laughs, very quietly. When Picard turns around Data is back: standing still, framed by the doorway, the absolute pallor of him vivid against the ship's artificial dimness. Deanna isn't surprised at Picard jerking away in surprise, but a little more so at Data doing the same, springing backwards, startled like a cat. 

"I'm sorry," Picard says, very gently. "Data, you know – we could designate space for this. Convert a cargo bay and let you be."

Deanna is thinking that if this were happening to her, night after night – her own space under this layer of dirty plates and misery – then perhaps she would react as Data just has, on edge and invaded. But Data shakes his head, and finds the cuddly sehlat still left in his quarters for Molly, and shifts Deanna's papers out of the way so he can sit down, and straightens the blanket on the couch. It's how things are going to be.

"It's best, in times like these," Picard says, speaking to no one in particular, taking Molly from Keiko again, "to feel that you can still be useful."

*

17.

Ensign Nakahari graduated from Starfleet Academy with honours, got her first choice of posting, and comes on board the Enterprise at Jupiter Station wondering if she's ever going to stop wanting to throw up. 

She lets the adrenaline carry her through her first two days aboard: she reports for duty with the engineering corps, deals with a minor relay explosion, goes to a voluntary-actually-compulsory musical evening social in Ten Forward, and somehow survives a two-minute awkward silence during which she can't remember her commanding officer's name. On day three she nearly drops a sandwich into the warp core. On day four, in the early hours, when she's mentally relived the whole thing maybe twenty or thirty times, sometimes with imaginative additions (the particular sound the plasma injectors would make, if clogged up with roast beef and mustard; the message Captain Picard would've had to send to Deep Space Nine, to say their arrival is delayed because of, long pause, an _unanticipated event_ ) she gets out of bed, stands in the middle of the floor with her eyes closed and says, "Computer, whale song. Tarkelian tea. A sledgehammer. _Something_."

There's a pause. And maybe it's just sleep-deprivation, or - but no, it's not. It's her engineer's ear for these things: the computer takes a few seconds longer to give its answering chime. And then her replicator lights up, leaving a calling card on a salver. "Computer," she says, picking it up, "locate... Insomniacs' Club?"

Twenty minutes later, she's running back to her quarters in her bare feet, her hair streaming out behind her, thinking it sounded like a good idea, a great idea, but the person who answered the door had two and a half pips on his collar, and she, once again - shit, shit, shit - couldn't remember his name.

*

18.

Alyssa has been to the Insomniacs’ Club a couple of times before. It’s the turn of the year that does it: when it’s early spring back home on Earth, with the pollen rising thickly beneath her bedroom window, it’s as though her body has some cellular memory of terrible hay fever even on a starship in deep space. The first time she sneezed three times, asked the computer for hot tea and shortly afterwards, made the trip out into the darkness to the ship’s arboretum; the second time, to Commander Data’s quarters. Both times, the night was quiet, and the different flavour of silence in company was a comfort.

Tonight, it’s both the coming of spring and the weight of the new pip on her collar. (Her mother, unhelpful as ever, remarked on whether a lieutenant was that much different from an ensign; Alyssa mostly sneezed.) She gives it five minutes, sneezes again and says, “Computer, locate Insomniacs’ Club.”

“The Insomniacs’ Club is on the bridge.”

Alyssa stops by the door. “Computer, locate Insomniacs’ Club.”

“The Insomniacs’ Club is on the bridge,” the computer says, with exactly the same inflection. 

“Computer” – but she stops after that, and heads towards the turbolift. She’ll find out.

When the turbolift doors open on the bridge it’s darkened for the late shift, the brightest lights coming from the consoles flashing red and green. “Alyssa," says a voice, "thank God" - and Alyssa steps forwards and, for a moment, doesn’t notice the shadows creeping on the viewscreen, or the humps and hillocks of human bodies laid out on the floor. “What…” she says, softly, and then, “Are they dead?”

“Not dead.” It’s Dr Crusher, moving backwards, slowly. “Not dead. Sleeping. It’s how it gets in. Data, look out!"

_How what gets in_ , Alyssa wants to ask. Then Data jerks bonelessly to the deck, Will Riker's eyes wide behind him, with a hand on the switch at the base of Data's spine, and one by one, the bodies on the floor begin to rise.

Alyssa takes a step back and a deep breath. Behind her, Beverly slips a phaser in her hand. Alyssa fires four shots into the ceiling, blows up a few consoles, and in the chaos, Beverly shouts, "Deck five!" and a terrifying few seconds later they're in the turbolift with the doors closed behind them, the sound of scraping fingernails fading into the distance as the turbolift whisks through the dark.

"I needed a diversion," Beverly says, not looking up. "Computer, halt turbolift. There will be people up in the labs."

Alyssa nods. Starfleet runs on bells and watches, but the civilian scientists may be awake. "Security officers and the gamma shift in engineering," she offers. "I could go there first, see if we can override ship's systems, lock people in their quarters if we have to."

Beverly nods. "Good thinking. They'll try and stun you, get in that way, so watch out. That's how they got the bridge crew." 

Alyssa breathes in. She's not afraid, she's thinking. She's terrified. But she's breathing. "Computer, resume turbolift."

Before the lift stops, Beverly says, “Lieutenant” – and they’re on first-name terms, usually, but Alyssa gets it. It’s that civilian scientists are awake at all hours while the commissioned officers sleep to watch time. It’s the weight of the pip on her collar. "Good luck."

"You too," Alyssa says, and the doors open on the corridor, lined with shadows. 

It's nights and nights until she can sleep again, even later, after they've cleared up the mess and run the sterilising agents through the ship's ventilation systems. Captain Picard puts both Dr. Crusher and Alyssa up for commendations, and Alyssa paces up and down, night after night. It's just the summer, though; just the fright she got. Sometimes she plays cards with Commander La Forge in the small hours of the morning, and answers to her rank just fine.

*

19.

"Right," Deanna says, the second time around. "The ground rules, for those who haven't heard them. Rule number one, Geordi isn't allowed to talk any more."

"I like that," Geordi grumbles. "All I said last time was, _come in_."

"Rule number two," Deanna continues, "everyone is welcome, for as long as they need. I'm not going to say that we leave rank at the door, because that's not how things work even when we want them to" - a brief smile at Ensign Nakahari - "but we leave the life of the day at the door. How about that?"

Nakahari nods, very slowly, and moves an inch away from the comfort of being pressed against the wall.

"Rules number three through seven," Deanna continues, "don't tell anyone they look like hell, even if they do; be kind; be brave; don't use up other people's allowances; and most importantly: what is said at the Insomniacs' Club, stays at the Insomniacs' Club. Is that okay?"

There's a chorus of agreement, and more grumbling from Geordi; Deanna draws a finger over her lips at him, then turns to the newcomer.

"Ensign Nakahari" - Deanna pauses - "that's your first and last name, isn't it?"

"Yes, Counsellor. My dad's human and Mum is Vulcan, but I don't use my clan name."

"Nakahari, then," Deanna says, and grins. "You can write those up." 

Nakahari blinks, and lets Deanna put a padd into her unresisting hands. Deanna taps her foot, Nakahari looks confused for a second, and then she gives in and starts writing. When she's done, Deanna does a quick, limited, late-night empathic read on her and can tell it's achieved the desired effect: the task has slowed Nakahari's mind down and making her less conscious of her own breathing. "There you go," Deanna says, softly. "You can play cards with us, or just talk, or sit quietly. Whatever you like. Nothing to be afraid of here."

Nakahari glances around the room and breathes in audibly. "It's just," she says, "I just – I got scared, at the sight of all these senior officers together, even in the middle of the night."

"Tell me, Ensign," Deanna says. "Do you have friends? You're new here, so Academy friends, perhaps?"

Nakahari nods. "Sure. I mean… it's just me on the Enterprise so far, but Rilla – zie's a Sulamid, zie might get an assignment here in astrocartography, tentacles crossed. And my other roommate got assigned to the Trieste, but we message each other. We're going to meet up the first leave we get."

"Right." Deanna nods. "If you and your friends work hard – you'll be senior officers on starships, too." She smiles at Nakahari's disbelieving look. "Believe me, you will be, someday. But you'll still be friends. You'll still message each other. You'll still be the people you are now, in fact, with all your little flaws and anxieties, just with the benefit of experience."

It takes her a moment to get it. When she does, Deanna follows her gaze across the room to where Geordi and Data are playing gin rummy and watches the understanding dawn on her face. "Oh," Nakahari says, closes her eyes, and yawns.

After a second, she looks up and says, '"Be brave, be kind'?"

"It's all there is," Deanna tells her, and from the look on her face, Nakahari understands it's not just advice for the here and now. Moving slowly, she curls up on the corner of a couch with the padd and pulls up something to read, while Deanna smiles to herself, crosses the room and asks to be dealt in.

*

20.

Geordi says, on the edge of something black and welcoming, “Do you really worry about that?”

"What?" Data asks, his voice seemingly coming from the bottom of a well. He ought to do something about that, Geordi's thinking; maybe Geordi himself ought to, he's the one who's responsible for keeping Data ticking. Ought to do something, or not. A well is comforting, dark and deep.

"What you said," Geordi says. "About – what you're waiting for. Entropy. The end. You know."

“Sometimes,” Data says, “not all the time. Geordi, if you fall asleep where you are, you will injure the muscles in your back."

"I'm not sleeping," Geordi says. "You know. Miles to go. If you've got miles to go before you… you know, maybe it'll start again. I read cyclic theories of the universe back in school. Introduction to metaethics for engineers. Totally crazy stuff. I liked it though. Tell me to leave if I'm bugging you."

"Geordi," Data says, and then there's no floor beneath Geordi's head any more, which is odd; it's a steady movement upwards, like he's in a turbolift or a shuttle rising out of atmosphere. Steady as a heartbeat, steady as the turn of the world. He's been picked up by Data before. 

Some kind of soft landing – like on water, or planetary gaseous surface. No, Data's couch.

"You may stay here as long as you want," Data says, softly, throwing a blanket over him – the blanket, shit, Geordi thinks, Tasha will be pissed, that one's her favour- 

Shit. 

"Perhaps," Data says, to Geordi, or to himself, or to the ship – they're both living things, after all – "it begins again." And, after a moment: "As long as you want."

*

1.

“Still not sleeping, Data?”

“No,” he says, cross and irritable, through gritted teeth, feet swinging across the void. Her hair flashes blonde against the blackness. He wonders vaguely where the last of the light is coming from.

“Aren’t you going to ask me if I’m a figment of your imagination again? That’s what you did every other time.”

“I have decided,” he tells her, still through gritted teeth, “that to ask the same question, over and over, expecting a different answer, is insanity.”

“But very human,” she says. “Take my hand.”

He could be insane, of course. In fact, Data is fairly certain that he is, by now, but there are very few points of reference remaining. He takes her hand.

“Geordi was right,” Tasha says. “About the nature of things. Do you remember, Data?”

“No.” Data's positronic net is starting to degrade, quicker and quicker now, factual information fading first, then observational data, then memory engrams, everything falling back as the rot sets in, compressing and abandoning and abstracting and finessing, so the last thing he will know will be his name. "You are a part of me," he points out. "How can I not…"

"Remember," she says, "how much they loved you. Now wait. The darkest hour is before the dawn."

Data waits, with his hand still held loosely in hers. The last of the light, Data thinks, confusedly, looking down at their entwined fingers. Light in the east. There’s no direction in space. Still east. Still down, nothing and nothing, down and down. Swinging his legs over the void. What is he sitting on, if this is nothingness? 

"It's all right," Tasha tells him, quietly, as it belatedly occurs to him that he may not have legs to swing over the void. Or a body, or a head. "You're going to be all right. You survived decapitation, remember?"

"No," he says, with difficulty, because he remembers two minutes ago, but everything else is going now, planets and worlds and star systems, spectrographic surveys and jazz and moonlit sails and sonatas and gin rummy and the Borg and the history of all things. Be brave, be kind. "The darkest hour," he says, hanging on, "before the dawn."

"There's a good one coming," she advises, and smiles, and disappears, leaving behind nothing but black. 

Data considers, entropy spilling through his fingers. It takes a moment. Then he scrubs his eyes free of grit, throws his head back, and cries out into the darkness: "Let there be-"

_-light-_


End file.
